Major review calls Younger Dryas impact hypothesis refuted
Holliday and colleagues assessed the proposed impact markers and dating. They concluded that the evidence does not support a cosmic event at 12,900 years ago.
Why it matters: This is the most detailed mainstream rebuttal. The Comet Research Group published replies, so the debate continues.
Enrico Crema and colleagues used statistical models of radiocarbon and site data to track Jomon forager populations around the Kikai-Akahoya eruption about 7,300 years ago, one of the largest of the Holocene (VEI 7). They find a major population collapse in regions next to the volcano, but some nearby populations grew after the disaster, and some distant communities were hit by environmental effects that had been overlooked.
Kathleen Springer, Jeffrey Pigati, Jessica Tierney and colleagues expanded the excavations at White Sands and found 20 stratigraphic layers with human footprints in place, alongside megafauna trackways and drag lines made by travois. New radiocarbon dates on conifer pollen, combined with dates on aquatic seeds, put the footprint sequence between 23,500 and 21,700 years ago. Pollen, biomarker and sediment data record the lake turning into a playa during a dry spell that matches Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2, about 23,200 years ago.
A Science news feature reports that Andean archaeologists are replacing the traditional Inca chronology (empire from 1438) with radiocarbon dates. At Saqsaywaman, dated charcoal suggests the site began to be remodelled with fitted masonry around 1400, with construction peaking from about 1418; the first results are in press at Antiquity.
Nature reported new geophysical survey results, published by Eldamaty, Abbas, Ballard and Reeves in the Amarna Royal Tombs Project’s occasional papers, that they say point to hidden chambers beyond the walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb, possibly the burial of Nefertiti.
